X-Men were going down hill before A vs X and that crossover basically put a nail in the coffin and I hate to say this but at the rate the Avengers are going it'll be a matter of time before they'll be in the same boat. Marvel tends to put its eggs all in one basket and that basket is usually the hottest thing that is going and then 'BOOM' the basket burns out. Right now the Avengers is the best thing or supposedly the best thing that's going for Marvel and in an interest to get more readers as they did with X-Men they tend to try and change the existing property to model after what was seen in the movies and to hell with continuity and storytelling.

I miss my X-Men that I grew up with. The outsiders who everyone feared but didn't know that they were secretly being protected by them. I missed the X-Men that would play baseball at the X-mansion. I miss the swashbuckling, adventure seeking, soap opera that was the X-Men were every member had a voice and Logan was not the center of their world. I miss the X-Men that had disagreements but yet and still worked together for the same dream and not change one of their own to a modern version of Magneto. That's what kill the X-Men for me. That and the fact that editorial has their own agenda and have forgot about the love for these characters that got them in the business in the first place. So until they give me what I want as a reader I'm probably done with the titles. After Infinity, I believe I'll drop The Avengers as well because it's not fun anymore.

I miss my X-Men that I grew up with. The outsiders who everyone feared but didn't know that they were secretly being protected by them. I missed the X-Men that would play baseball at the X-mansion. I miss the swashbuckling, adventure seeking, soap opera that was the X-Men were every member had a voice and Logan was not the center of their world. I miss the X-Men that had disagreements but yet and still worked together for the same dream and not change one of their own to a modern version of Magneto. That's what kill the X-Men for me. That and the fact that editorial has their own agenda and have forgot about the love for these characters that got them in the business in the first place. So until they give me what I want as a reader I'm probably done with the titles. After Infinity, I believe I'll drop The Avengers as well because it's not fun anymore.

Well said, I keep skirting around X-men. One or two titles will interest me, but it's never like when I was a kid in the 90s. I loved the cartoons and the games, and I'd read the modern comics while going back to the past ones when I could. They had a great balance between heroics, family, tragedy and duty.

There is this huge gap that's in my heart for the X-books. I kept thinking that after more mutants started to show up (frickin' finally!) things would be getting better....nope. I really really wanted to like Battle of the Atom, but after the first few issues, I fell behind and then I heard of how blah it's gotten from word of mouth. Didn't bother catching up.

If I went back into the past to tell my younger self about the current state of affairs, he would laugh at me and say I'm lying.

Yea, for me, House of M is what really put the hurt on things. The "No More Mutants" thing would have been interesting for a bit, but it draaaaaaaaaagged and draaaaaaaaagged and just introduced more and more problems. I just hate that the evolving society with Mutants concept bit the dust.

Having Mutants forming their own subcultures and everything would really shape how it's all moving forward- the world is changing and people gotta get used to it. If anything there was stronger storyline potential for the long term rather than having just a couple hundred of them left.

Yea, for me, House of M is what really put the hurt on things. The "No More Mutants" thing would have been interesting for a bit, but it draaaaaaaaaagged and draaaaaaaaagged and just introduced more and more problems. I just hate that the evolving society with Mutants concept bit the dust.

Having Mutants forming their own subcultures and everything would really shape how it's all moving forward- the world is changing and people gotta get used to it. If anything there was stronger storyline potential for the long term rather than having just a couple hundred of them left.

yeah see i think there was some good potential after HoM, but then it got dragged on too long

and I didn't really start to hate the direction of the x-books until AvX

W&TXM's first year and UXF have been some of the best x-books, for my money, in the 22 years I've been reading

There have been plenty of lousy era's of X-Men over the years. I started around Fall of the Mutants and the first real bad era I saw was the post Onslaught stuff.

As far as the modern era of X-Men, things have never really rebounded since House of M.

I didn't mind the post-Onslaught stuff. While most disliked it, I consistently liked it up through Eve of Destruction. That's when Casey and Morrison took the reigns (with Austin taking over from Casey after a year or less). That's when the comics stopped feeling like X-Men and started changing into the movies. The costumes went leather and they really started playing up the Wolverine/Jean thing again. Cyclops became more of a jerk (like in the movies) instead of the hero that the other X-Men looked up to. And ultimately the book began to feel less like a family and more like a dysfunction. From the Casey/Austin side of things, the book started to feel like a second stringer that mattered little compared to the NEW core title.

It was still enjoyable though as far as stories go until Scott and Emma started having an affair and Jean tried having an affair with Wolverine. From that point on the whole feel of the X-Men changed and it's never recovered. The stories themselves were good, but the feeling was way off, and then it just died at the end of Morrison's run. Whedon's run was good but flawed due to the spot Morrison left the franchise. Once he left, there really hasn't been a good run at all.

The only really good runs were side titles like District X, Claremont's Excalibur starring Xavier, and Remender's Uncanny X-Force. With the exception of Jason Aaron's first year on Wolverine & the X-Men, the actual X-Men books have suffered since Morrison.

So, had Bendis's All New X-Men tumbled off? I remember it got some praise at first, but now it seems like it's back to pure pessimism mode for the X-fans.

__________________
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Quote:

I was a North American Fall Webworm in my past life. Those were the good old days.

I think it was mainly just better than expected
but once everyone settled in, its just kinda ok
add that to a dumb premise that they're having a difficult time resolving, for ANXM, and most people seem to have faded a bit on it

As far as Bendis' run goes, it started really well because the Original 5 premise was fairly intriguing. But that sort of premise can only last so long before it gets a little old, and Bendis hasn't found a way to make it fresh again yet. Now, it seems like he's been building to Battle of the Atom, so it might improve beyond this point, but I doubt it. I think people ended up liking the O5 on a temporary basis. Bendis doesn't seem to see it as temporary, and I think that's going to grate on a lot of people's nerves.

Some interesting bandwagons to hop on here. For what its worth, I haven't touched the major X-Men books for a very long time for many of the reasons cited. While the premise often led to some bleakness or cynicism, I think most of the last decade have steered that into almost satirical levels. The last two runs of any X-book I read when they were new were the Whedon/Cassaday run of ASTONISHING X-MEN, and the Christos Gage run of ROGUE & SOME X-MEN (sold in the states as X-MEN: LEGACY). Both runs, frankly, had their warts. I do agree that a franchise which seems to squash the life out of any character who isn't a bleak, violent, dark anti-hero and seems to breed nothing but those is a franchise which needs some examination. From graveyards full of dead new characters to forcing Iceman and Colossus into becoming rampaging monsters during some stories, there's rarely much which excites me about new X-Men runs. Yet I still like many of the characters, and the premise as a whole.

Oh, and considering many of the people who are now lamenting about the Bendis run were lavishing it with "omigod, read it because it defied expectations by not being horrible" words just three months ago, I do have an urge to utter an "I told you so".

More spoilers/rants ahoy.

DREAD'S BOUGHT/THOUGHT FOR 10/23/13:

DAREDEVIL #32: With Halloween (or "Hallowe'en") just over a week away, many comic books seek to capitalize on the holiday by adding some spooky elements to their stories, or releasing a themed special issue or two. It is therefore little surprise that for October's issue of the critically acclaimed current run of "Daredevil", we find the man without fear standing alongside some of Marvel's most notable monster characters from their horror line up of the 1970's. These characters, from Marvel versions of public domain characters like the Mummy or Frankenstein's monster, to original creations such as Satana or Simon Garth (the Zombie), have appeared from time to time over the years hanging out with Morbius or the Punisher (long story) as the "legion of monsters". Considering the fact that he literally dresses like a devil, it's actually surprising that Daredevil himself has had few encounters with some of these characters, despite many previous stories from previous decades involving demons - even the recent "Shadowland". Fortunately, story masters Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (alongside colorist Javier Rodriguez) do more than make this issue a timely holiday gimmick story.

There is a lot happening within the series right now, as well told single issues (or two or three issue arcs) branch along into a progressive long term narrative. Despite undoing a conspiracy against him organized by Bullseye, Matt Murdock's life remains hectic. His best friend (and law partner) Foggy Nelson is battling cancer while a deeply entrenched organization of racists - the "Sons of the Serpent" - seek to drive New York City into a race riot via manipulating the legal system and the media. To this end they've hired one of Daredevil's enemies, the Jester, to sow the chaos with his usual parlor tricks and schemes. However, the Jester can't resist a chance to try to kill off his arch nemesis, which has now led to Murdock learning more about their scheme. After escaping a trap and not falling for last issue's cliffhanger (which included a fake body of his best friend which the blind Murdock literally could not see), Murdock and Foggy seek to trace the evil cabal to its roots and seek to uproot it from NYC. Unfortunately for Daredevil, this means a trip to Stone Hills, Kentucky, where he has to deal with ignorant redneck hunters and a group of monsters as he searches for a lead with Jack Russell - who is himself a monster, the "Werewolf-By-Night".
As always with this series, the strength of the series is more in its execution than its plotting. While the plots are often strong and have twists and wacky turns, it's often the way in which Waid and his collaborating artists for this run - most recently, Samnee - tell the tale itself. The first few pages have the Jester lay out his motivation which works for his theater motif as well as seems to be Waid's continued effort to rehabilitate the villain and get him to escape the shadow of being an imitation of more well known DC villains like the Joker or Riddler. The history of the "Sons of the Serpent" are embellished as Waid sees them beyond snake themed wackos in silly costumes but as a chance to take them to a logical conclusion as the Marvel Universe's version of the Klu Klux Klan. Admittedly, the revelation about mystical origins comes as a left turn, and Dr. Strange could have saved Matt a lot of trouble by simply admitting that Russell is a werewolf. It is understandable that Strange saw it as a "condition" which is up to Russell to reveal, but it is a lot like sending someone to meet with Bruce Banner without any warning that he turns into a green behemoth with the slightest stress. And while Waid has often relied on team-up stories for this run, he usually manages to focus on characters Daredevil has rarely met up with, such as Hulk or Silver Surfer or this collection of horror figures.

The artwork is always up to Samnee and Rodriguez's usual snuff. Jack Russell's werewolf form is one of those designs which Marvel editors allow to vary wildly depending on the artist's tastes. Some make him look like the Wolf-Man of the Universal film series while others make him look far more canine, even going as far as having a snout and long ears, or a literal wolf's head. One could argue that certain characters should stick to a steady design, but if Marvel hasn't been willing to strictly enforce that with the far more well known Beast for almost a decade, than Russell has no chance. The same goes for most of the horror characters, especially Satana and the Frankenstein Monster. Samnee sticks with their classic late Silver Age designs for the most recognition and it suits his style perfectly. Even Jester, who can look ridiculous or generic under the wrong pencils, pops out of his panels here and looks more distinct than he has in ages despite a complicated garb.

As always, "Daredevil" is a great comic at a great price, living up to its Eisner prize and offering twenty thrilling, exciting, thought provoking and/or beautifully drawn pages every month. No major crossovers, no gimmicks, just the most solid superhero run at Marvel Comics right now. I can understand it not being for everyone - Daredevil was all but literally about nothing more than wrist-slitting bleakness, ninjas, demons, and/or demonic ninjas for the better part of a generation - but it will be a shame to me to see it end next year.

INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK #14: The second dose of Mark Waid this week from Marvel as the Hulk continues his “agent of T.I.M.E.” story spinning right out of the events of “Age of Ultron”, which has already been forgotten around the rest of Marvel lately. This series often serves as Waid’s “other” series with Marvel compared to “Daredevil”, and this issue seems to keep that reputation intact as the story, while fascinating, is an action packed mess. Banner and the Hulk have been split via one of SHIELD’s machines and been sent into the time-stream to prevent it from collapsing. To this end they’ve battled the Chronarchists, a squad of time-terrorists seeking to exploit the collapsing time stream for their own benefit. Two out of three have been dispatched, but the third appears to be the most successful as he’s been tampering with the Hulk’s own time period, right down to his origin. The twist that Zarrko – Thor’s old nemesis who is a prisoner of SHIELD and laid out the scheme to begin with – is in fact in league with the Chronarchists is not much of a surprise. The time gimmick allows for different versions of the Hulk to appear and for him to continue to blip across different time zones, but it is a gimmick which is growing tiresome. Art is split by Mahmud Asrar, Kim Jacinto with colors by Val Staples which all plays to the action and far out locations. It’s a decent enough romp, but Jeff Parker’s “Thunderbolts” run ran a similar premise into the ground for over a year, and Waid can’t seem to wrest much else from it.

IRON MAN #17: After a long and winding path, “The Secret Origin of Tony Stark” concludes not a moment too soon as Kieron Gillen wraps up his first year (and change) on the core Iron Man title. After a lot of space flights and alien robots, it all boils down to something simple – Tony was actually adopted, and he’s got a long lost brother hidden away from the world who he can now meet for the first time. It is quite a retcon, but less of one than the long winding story had led readers to believe – that Tony was so brilliant due to genetic tampering by an alien robot. This final development is interesting and bares a timely reference to “Iron Man 2020”, circa 1984; it is a shame that the story drug out as long as it did. The art is split between Carlo Pagulayan and Scott Hanna, with Guru eFX on colors, and it is far more vibrant than anything Greg “Photoshop” Land produced. The best comic book stories tend to serve as a dramatic metaphor for something many experience in life, and revelations about one’s parentage and/or siblings are things many people deal with. This finale will be controversial for some fans, but at least this arc ends stronger than it began.

UNCANNY AVENGERS #13: After a month off, artist Daniel Acuna returns to magnificently handle the task of depicting Rick Remender’s latest issue starring the “unity” team of X-Men and Avengers in brilliant detail. Unfortunately, Remender’s story is less reliable but on the whole this is a “hit” issue as things begin to come together. The new Apocalypse Twins have divided the team with their new Four Horsemen and set about a plan to manipulate Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man into transporting all mutants to another planet to prevent their genocide from yet another dark future which must be prevented – a plot point from the X-Men franchise which was old even twenty years ago. As Thor seeks to regroup and save another planet, the rest of the team seeks to dismantle the twin’s plans from two different, and uncoordinated fronts. Remender wrangles some comedy out of Cap losing hearing after a sonic blast from Banshee last issue, while he also lays a lot of Wolverine’s sins bare. Much like his end run on “Secret Avengers”, he has succeeded in crafting a plot where the villains’ ambitions aren’t entirely wrong or evil, and the chore of undoing it may not be the best thing to do, even if the villains are employing some disturbing means to their plot. A lot of the wacky space details of previous issues sometimes clouded this angle, but they’re absent here and the issue is stronger for it. The line between Remender writing the characters or his own meta-commentary can blur, but overall this is a solid issue which raises the stakes for the finale.

VENOM #42l After roughly three years and over forty issues of material, Cullen Bunn and artist Jorge Coelho (with colorist Lee Loughridge) bring it all to an action packed close. Low sales ultimately made this finale inevitable, and it hardly wraps up every loose end available. However, considering Venom’s heyday as a franchise arguably ended in 1998, the fact that this series has lasted as long as it has while remaining as great as it has all with a new man beyond the symbiote – Flash Thompson – is a feat unto itself. In this issue, Agent Venom and his new teenage partner/student Mania organize a fateful meeting with Mephisto before having a final showdown with Crossbones, Master Pandemonium and an army of mercenaries. This does mean delving into the “Monsters of Evil” stuff from Bunn’s first and often unsuccessful arcs of this run, but this is needed to bring things full circle. On the whole this is a satisfying enough final issue, and through the 28 issues in which Bunn wrote or co-wrote this series, he’s steered it to a shore which the launch writer Rick Remender should be proud of. This has been a very enjoyable book, although ending things on this positive note was likely for the best.

YOUNG AVENGERS #11: Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s terminally hip take on teenage Marvel heroes reaches the penultimate issue of its second arc, which ties into its first arc fairly fluidly. It seems most issues in this series focus on either Loki, Wiccan, and/or Hulkling with rare glimpses at anyone else in the cast, and this issue serves as little exception. It sets up a final battle between the heroes and the inter-dimension parasite “Mother”, who captured Hulkling last month and is staging a final showdown with both them and their planet. The cast are being forced with literally fighting their exes or parents from both this reality and other realities. Loki gets a new adult body just in time for “Thor 2” in two weeks as the final die is cast. As always with this series, the flair and style of it seems to matter far more than the plot, which is often a mess of metaphors and technobabble. McKelvie’s art (with three inkers and colorist Matthew Wilson in tow) all but steals the stage from Gillen’s script as it often does, providing issues which look like no other on the stands. The finale ups the danger scale to eleven and it is commendable how this series seeks to treat Marvel’s young adult superheroes as more of a fluid community than previous comics have. It will all come down to the next issue, and this one sets that up nicely.

Oh, and considering many of the people who are now lamenting about the Bendis run were lavishing it with "omigod, read it because it defied expectations by not being horrible" words just three months ago, I do have an urge to utter an "I told you so".

Bendis' run has been far better than "not horrible". It started 'fantastic' and fell to 'good' but has stalled with this crossover. It can possibly pick up, but we'll see. But it takes a lot of personal hatred toward the writer to pin the modern faults on a single writer. X-Men's been faltering for over a decade, and of the 4 writers, his is the only one that's stood out since AvX. I think what he does post-Battle of the Atom will tell us if he just had a great start or if he's just headlining a bad event.

Oh, and considering many of the people who are now lamenting about the Bendis run were lavishing it with "omigod, read it because it defied expectations by not being horrible" words just three months ago, I do have an urge to utter an "I told you so".

Bendis' run has been far better than "not horrible". It started 'fantastic' and fell to 'good' but has stalled with this crossover. It can possibly pick up, but we'll see. But it takes a lot of personal hatred toward the writer to pin the modern faults on a single writer. X-Men's been faltering for over a decade, and of the 4 writers, his is the only one that's stood out since AvX. I think what he does post-Battle of the Atom will tell us if he just had a great start or if he's just headlining a bad event.

It just feels worse when it's on the heals of a decade of bad status-quo and 'good' runs at best. Add that to the fact that his run is surrounded by a horrendous run of Wolverine & the X-Men, a forgettable start of Brian Woods' X-Men, a weird/boring run of Spurrier's X-Men Legacy, and the widely ignored Marjorie Liu's Astonishing X-Men... it's just disheartening.

Samurai Jack #1: Good start in terms of story, meh artwork. Hopefully the latter improves. The toon ended far too soon so it's good to have Jack back in some form.

Harbinger #17: I don't know if I missed an issue or I just read too many comics and forgot what happened last issue but something seems off. Kris killed Torque a couple issues ago, but now it seems that all took place in an artificial reality...? Just seems like there was no transition from what was going on to where the "team" is now. We are also introduced to a (I assume) new character that will be joining the "team". I don't know if Clayton Henry is taking over art chores or just did this one issue but I hope it's the former.

Daredevil #32: One of the best things about Waid's run is his use of characters that don't typically appear in Daredevil stories. Early on there were characters like The Spot and The Mole Man and in this issue he encounteres Werewolf by Night and what appears to be another version of The Night Shift, a crew that Werewolf was a part of in the past (with Shroud as leader back then). Samnee's art is great as usual. Waid's run on the book may be coming to an end soon according to what some people on this site are saying. Hopefully that's not the case, but if it is I hope the next writer continues to do interesting things with the character and not take him back to the boring non-stop gloom and doom days.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2 & #3:Andrea Di Vito's art is definitely the highlight of the book. The story by Phil Hester is okay...I like it enough to see the first arc through at least.

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